


Role Playing Game

by aam5ever



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders Angst, POV Third Person, Post-Episode: Selfishness v. Selflessness, Sympathetic Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders, Sympathetic Deceit Sanders, glass tw, im saying its sympathetic for both because its true! this fic is not meant to attack either of them, though it's from romans POV so be aware of that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:35:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23985430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aam5ever/pseuds/aam5ever
Summary: It was supposed to be a good morning.Where there should've been people, there was emptiness. Where there should've been a simple choice, there was complex reason. Where there should've been an obvious villain there was a feeling of immense betrayal, and when there should've been an obvious hero... Roman isn't sure that he fits that mold anymore.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 63





	Role Playing Game

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all! Just wanna say thank you for checking out this fic, it means a lot to me due to my on and off with ao3. I love SS and hope this fic is entertaining! Maybe I'll do longer SS fics in the future?

It could’ve been a good morning.

Virgil could've been catching up on lost sleep on the couch, Patton laying a blanket over him before checking in with breakfast. Logan would have been boiling water for tea and running the coffee maker all at once so they’d all get their morning caffeine in. Roman would’ve said he could do breakfast; French toast and too much cinnamon or waffles topped high with whipped cream... it would’ve been a while before he and Logan settled on a halfway point between satisfying and satisfactory for their health.

They all would’ve sat together, Virgil yawning and rubbing his eyes, getting eyeshadow all over his hands and not realizing until he was halfway through his breakfast. All of them would've kept quiet about it, since it would have interrupted the flow of eating. Logan would bring up something new he learned and Patton would be completely enraptured and only getting half of the points all at once. Roman probably would have pretended to snore, only to be lightly chastised by Patton and end up rolling his eyes with a smile.

He... smiled a lot more, before.

Cleanup was always easy, then. Patton loved to tackle the dishes, and Virgil enjoyed part of his waking up process that came with drying. Roman would hear them talk and laugh, wondering just when they got to be so close. There was so much, in retrospect, that he didn’t see coming. He wasn’t the most attentive. He wasn’t the most observant. Maybe then, he would’ve been able to have at least some foresight... the foresight that Thomas will end up wanting. That he didn’t end up getting when it mattered.

And who’s fault was that, really?

He’s been wracking his brain about it continuously. In that situation, blame had to be placed.  _ There has to be a cause _ shifted quickly to  _ there has to be a villain.  _

“There’s always a good and a bad. An evil to be vanquished. Otherwise, what is the use of a princely knight?” Roman had laughed to himself slightly about it in the mirror some mornings, picking his teeth or fixing his hair, justifying his existence with the morning rituals he made to have some sort of order to his duties. With every new imperfection squashed down, he felt more like himself. He had to be perfect. For Thomas.

Without evil, there would be no conquest or reward or savior... there would just be a bland world. Imagine thinking that. That world peace... would be bland. That  _ Thomas’ _ peace would be bland.

_ No, that’s not right. _

There has to be a way to fix all of this mess that was happening in Thomas’ head. He was a good person and it was part of Roman’s duties to remind him of this. Maybe it was just time to make a villain so that he can be the hero again, so that he can have a  _ purpose  _ again... and for Thomas to conquer and move on from, of course. 

There  _ was _ somebody to blame for all of this. It really was perfect, how it all aligned; the Scooby Doo villain, the motif he followed so closely and the imagery of a lying, scheming snake... even his  _ brother _ helped confirm just how much this man was scum, because he was so heavily associated with Remus. Yes, there was somebody to blame, and his name was Deceit.

And then his name... was Janus.

And then they  _ trusted  _ him, and that couldn’t happen. It was laughable that it would ever happen. The evil doesn’t get to be good, the evil is evil and it stays in its place and it never becomes  _ anything  _ more. You can’t  _ grow  _ from evil, you can’t stop it, you just live with the fact that you are nothing but a menace to society, and...

_ “Roman, thank God you don’t have a mustache...” _

His face dropped. His mind raced.

_ No... I’m not the evil one... I can change... _

_ “...otherwise between you and Remus, I wouldn’t know who the evil twin is!” _

_ No, no no, this isn’t what I wanted... this isn’t the villain I wanted to make...  _

“I thought I was your hero.”

The words tumbled out of him and they were met with a blank silence from both Thomas and Patton. Roman’s world began to crack and cave. Breathing was becoming difficult by the second. The Game Over screen was counting down before his very eyes. Going on, fighting his case... it just didn’t feel like this was something he could win.

_ Continue?  _

“You are!” Thomas has said, desperation in his voice. Uncertainty in his eyes. A question, unspoken afterwards, on his lips...  _ “aren’t you?” _

5... 4...

“Everything’s gonna be okay, kiddo.” Patton told him this, as if afraid of what would happen. As if afraid of  _ him _ . People, good people, aren’t afraid of other good people, aren’t terrified of the consequences of not satiating another good person. So what did that make him? If Patton was the good... and oh, Patton has tried his best to be... and if Janus... was trusted...

3...2...

“We love you.” 

1.

“Right.”

_ Game Over. _

He couldn’t save a single person in the end, not even himself. It was time to end this game... because he was tired, oh so tired. Tired of being the actual liar, thinking he was anything special to any one of them. Tired of letting people down. Tired of pretending he was good for  _ anybody. _

It could’ve been a good morning.

But there was nobody around to talk or laugh or sleep in or cook or make coffee or even... look at, except for the shattered remains of the self he had created for breakfast. 

  
The sharp glass of truth hurt going down. He didn’t stop until it was all finished. There was no point in stopping, the truth was  _ meant _ to hurt, and the truth is... that Thomas’ hero has begun a new, villainous origin story. 

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr: aam5ever  
> Twitter: @aam5ever
> 
> Feel free to check out some of my other fics!


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